Dictates are futile, and mutual accusations are nothing but useless word games.
I have generally sought to work on questions that I thought were both interesting and approachable, yet not too widely appreciated. To struggle to make discoveries that would be made by others a short time later seems futile to me.
Many of the architects of the Vietnam War became near pariahs as they spent the remainder of their lives in the futile quest to explain away their decisions at the time.
In the knockout tournaments, it's futile to prepare for a grand finale. You may have worked out many strategies for the final. But you may lose in the first round itself.
Puritanical attempts to cure society by taking toys away from children are hypocritical and futile.
Deficiencies in individuals, as in States, have their value and import. Indeed, that sublime impulse of perfectibility, always vivacious, always working under various forms and with one underlying purpose, would be futile without them, and fatuous.
